YEAR: 1999

SEASON: Winter

MONTH: December

DATE: 12-12-99

STATE: Iowa

COUNTY: Pottawattamie County

LOCATION DETAILS: If you go north on I-29 to Loveland Iowa, then go west about 5 miles. the camp ground is right on the Missouri river directly south of Desoto Bend. It's about 10 miles north of Omaha Neb. as the Crow flies.

NEAREST TOWN: Missouri Valley

NEAREST ROAD: I-29

OBSERVED: My name is Todd Davis. Myself and a freind "Brian J." went camping at Wilson Island State Park. This park is connected to Desoto Bend National Wildlife Refuge in Iowa. Well here is my account of what happened. It was aproximately 2:55 am when I was awakened by the sound of footsteps in the dry leaves. It circled my tent then stopped directly behind my head. Being half awake I assumed it was my friend Brian getting up to go to the bathroom in the bushes. But then I heard the sound of Brian unzipping his tent and so I realized it wasn' Brian. When I jumped up to go outside of my tent, what ever it was standing behind my tent took off, plowing through the trees heading to the Missouri River, which was about 300 meters from our camp site. Anyway when we both climbed out of our tents, we were afraid, because Brian thought I was walking around his tent trying to scare him. When we realized we were both inside our tents at the same time it gave us a very spooky feeling. I guess what bothered us the most was that we were the only people in the campground. We pondered the possibility of it being a hunter, but why would a hunter be out at 2:55am in a state park? Well, neither one of us saw anything but I have never felt like that before. The whole night we both felt like we were being watched.

ALSO NOTICED: Prior to the incident, at around 8:00pm we heard a couple of screams. It kind of sounded like a woman crying or the sound a rabbit makes when it is getting killed. Also it was very quiet and still.

OTHER WITNESSES: Just me and my friend Brian,we didn't see anything but we both heard the heavy footsteps around our campsite. I mean they were so great that it woke us up.

OTHER STORIES: I heard about 10 years ago that a truck driver saw something cross the highway by Estherville, Iowa, they said it had brownish orange hair and was 6ft tall.

TIME AND CONDITIONS: It was very early morning 2:55am. it was a clear night, no moon, very mild temperatures for December - about 32 degrees; dark and no wind.

ENVIRONMENT: The environment has some flood plains, but mostly tall cottonwood forest with a lot of underbrush with creeks and ponds. It's about 8 miles west of the Loesses hills.

Follow-up investigation report:

After speaking with Todd on the phone and communicating about questions that came to mind later, I am forced to conclude that it is likely a sasquatch did come in and investigate he and his friend's campsite.

Activity at that time of the year, time of night and the sounds the two campers heard could easily have been accomplished by one. Other species really do not fit... especially when combined with both the vocalizations and their volume.

Then add the sounds of heavy footsteps just outside the tents which was followed by a loud crashing of the brush on its exit. Also obvious was that he was completely convinced that something large visited him and his friend that night. And, he described how nervewracking such an experience was. Todd also mentioned that the vocalizations matched several sound files available on the websites.